


The Booze and Her Kiss

by homeros



Category: Peaky Blinders (TV), Peaky Blinders RPF
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, Minor Character Death, Minor Violence, Wakes & Funerals
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-29
Updated: 2020-01-10
Packaged: 2021-02-27 11:53:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 4,247
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22016674
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/homeros/pseuds/homeros
Summary: In which Tommy tries to comfort you but you're inconsolable.
Relationships: Tommy Shelby/Original Female Character(s), Tommy Shelby/Reader, Tommy Shelby/You
Comments: 4
Kudos: 94





	1. Chapter 1

Summer days in Birmingham were warm, but the nights never were.

That was why Ada was surprised when she found you on her doorstep, wearing only a black dress, no coat at all.

You were shaking from the cold. Tears were falling heavily from your eyes. You swallowed audibly and your voice broke when you told her. ‘I need a favor, Ada.’

She stared at you for a moment, her eyes wide, but then quickly went inside. She returned with a blanket, which she placed over you and then wrapped her arms around you as she helped you get in the house.

‘Of course you can stay’, she told you when she sat you at the kitchen table. She didn’t yet know what it was for, but you were a dear friend of hers and she’d help you in any way she could. You knew that, and were grateful.

Her brothers were at the Garrison and Polly had already gone to bed. You couldn’t remember the house ever being this quiet.

She took in your pale face and blue lips, and sighed. ‘What on earth happened?’

You quietly explained when she made some tea. Then you saw that the doors separating the house and the betting shop were closed. It made you think of Tommy, and you hoped he would come back soon.

It was quiet for a while as you stared at the doors. Ada drank her tea, a feeling of disbelief settling deep inside her. 

‘I don’t know, Ada’, you said at last, ‘I’m not brave like you. I don’t have brothers to protect me from everything.’

‘But that doesn’t matter. You have to stand up for yourself.’

She reached out and grabbed your hand. There was a fire in her eyes, a determination for you to take your life back.

You placed your cup of tea down on the table. Her stare made you nervous.

‘I can’t anymore.’

The lit candles made her face a bright shade of orange. 

Ada had been your best friend for as long as you could remember. You knew each other through and through, so she was aware of how much exactly the death of your father weighed on you.

Then you sobbed, looking down at the table. ‘I don’t know what to do anymore. They took everything from me. I couldn’t even take his picture.’

‘That’s why you’ve got to go back. Stand your ground. Take what is yours.’

She hated how defeated you were. But she also recognized you were still in mourning, and that pushing you to do things you weren’t ready for would only pain you more.

Ada felt a great deal of sadness when she saw your expression. ‘It’s all hers now. And she won’t give me a single thing.’

You remembered the look your mother gave you at the funeral. It was full of repulse, disgust. ‘You’re not coming with us’, she had told you harshly. The worst part of it was that you didn’t even have to think twice to know why. But you could never understand how she could discard you like that.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Tommy tries to comfort you but you're inconsolable.

Two hours and a half later, Ada was tidying up her room a bit in the dark. She folded your clothes and placed them on the small desk, then opened up her closet. An extra pillow was lying on the top shelf. She couldn’t just reach it.

‘Need some help?’, her brother asked.

It startled her, as it was as silent as a night could be, and she hadn’t heard him walk towards her. Tommy was leaning against the doorframe, half of the buttons of his shirt undone and a cigarette hanging from his lips.

‘Yeah, can you grab me that pillow?’

He did so. 

‘What’s the matter with the other one?’, he asked casually.

Ada nodded her head towards you when she fluffed up the pillow. ‘She took it.’

That’s when Thomas finally noticed you.

You were fast asleep on the bed, your body on it’s side, facing them. He could tell you had been crying, and even in your dreams you were doing so.

Tommy slowly walked over towards you.

‘What is she doing here?’, he asked, a hint of concern in his voice. Ada glanced at you and told him quietly. 

‘She wanted us to come to the funeral, but her stepmother wouldn’t let her. They got in a huge fight, and after the funeral, she told her that she couldn’t come home with them.’

Tommy shook his head. When he looked at you face, barely visible in the dark if not for a small ray of moonlight shining through the thin curtains, all he saw were his memories of you. He knew about the way your stepmother felt about him, and you had discussed it oftentimes, but it never put out that gorgeous and beaming smile of yours. He remembered this, together with the way your hair seemed to light up with the afternoon sun behind you. He also recalled that one kiss, that you had granted him nearly a month ago. It was the fondest memory he had of you.

‘Are we that terrible, Ada?’

It wasn’t really a question, more like Tommy’s disbelief having a voice of its own, but Ada responded nonetheless when she grabbed the cigarette from his hand. ‘ _ They _ are terrible. She doesn’t deserve this.’

The smoke formed little clouds in front of her eyes as she exhaled it, but she could clearly see through how Tommy leaned in and gently brushed your hair behind your ear. His thumb lingered on your cheekbone for a moment.

‘No, she doesn’t’, he finally said, and then, after a pause, ‘Let her stay as long as she needs to’.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Tommy tries to comfort you but you're inconsolable.

Between the whispers and the digging and the shovels, Tommy saw visions of calling out your name as you ran across the fields. You both were laughing, and he suddenly remembered it wasn’t a vision, but a memory, from long before the war. 

You were little more than children back then, but he could already recognize how captivating you were, in your white summer dress. Who ever knew that love could be like this?

Yet neither of you acted on it. Your family despised him and his kin, and considering you lived in the better neighbourhoods of Birmingham, it wasn’t a simple matter of running away together. 

Now, however, he thought as his mind drifted between sleep and consciousness, there was a chance for him. 

It put the smallest of smiles on his face, and with the thought of that, there was finally some silence in his head.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Tommy tries to comfort you but you're inconsolable.

The next morning he waited at the breakfast table until you came downstairs. Everyone else had already finished.

He kept a clean and calm posture when he smoked, but inside he was growing impatient. There were things he wanted to ask you, things he wanted to tell you. 

But mostly, he wanted to hold you, and kiss you, and God knows what else.

Then you came at last, and the sight of you was something Tommy thought he’d never forget. 

You were barefoot, but had thrown a dress on. It was a sheer one, though, meant for hot summer days, and it left your chest partly exposed. 

His eyes lingered for a mere second on the shape of your breasts, then went onto your hair, that fell loosely down your shoulders. (You never knew brushing it could require such an effort, as even breathing felt too difficult to do now.) 

He then looked you in the eye, and found yours red from crying. That, together with your trembling hands that you tried to hide, was one of the saddest and most beautiful things he had ever seen.

‘Come here, love’, he mumbled as he stood up, pushed out his cigarette, and walked around the table towards you. 

Thomas Shelby was a strong and often intimidating man, but you knew the soft and caring side there was inside him even better. That’s why he never scared you, and that’s why your shaking fingers reached for him.

He wrapped his arms around you, as tight as he could. He rested his cheek against your head, and rubbed your back when you cried.

Neither of you recalled how long you stood there, but it was the most peaceful moment both of you had felt in  _ such _ a long time. 

You held him as close, and looked over his shoulder out of the window. You realised then that in that moment the whole world could perish, and you wouldn’t even notice. As long as his arms were around your body, and as long as his scent was all you could smell, and as long as his lips brushed your ear when he told you how beautiful you were, and how all of it was going to be okay.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Tommy tries to comfort you but you're inconsolable.

Over the past year, you had tried to make you peace with it. 

You understood her reasons; you were a disobedient rich girl who wanted to be with a man way lesser than what she was worth. She never minded you being friends with Ada, but when you had told her you felt something for her brother, something drastically changed within her. 

So Tommy and you decided it was better to be friends. 

The decision was mostly his, as he couldn’t bring himself to ruin your future - a future that he’d never have. And it did pain you a lot, because your feelings for him were genuine and rooted deeply inside you. 

This had happened before the war. Tommy remembered all of it well, the blood and the smell of death, the destruction and the cries for loved ones. And sometimes, when it all got a little too much now, he wished he could go back, as those times, however horrible they may have been, were at least  _ simple _ . It was kill or be killed, nothing else. 

But now, even though everyone thought of him as the most intelligent man they knew, he could never seem to figure his feelings out. The love you shared for each other was evident, but always unfulfilled, and that was the most frustrating thing in the world.

He had seen that love in the tears on your cheeks when he was sitting in the train, heading to France. He had also seen it in your words, the ones you filled your endless letters with it, the only thing keeping him sane. And he had seen it in your smile the day he came back, even though he could barely return it.

But you had kissed him, that one time, roughly a month before your father had passed. He knew, and you knew, that it was nothing compared to all the things he wanted, but it at least was  _ something _ . And that something kept him awake many nights after. 

He remembered it as soft and sweet, a stark contrast against the darkness of his room. You had sneaked in well after midnight, because he had been haunting you in your dreams for such a long time now that you figured something had to be done about it.

He turned you away after it. 

Not because he didn’t want you - God, it was  _ everything _ he wanted - but for fear of the consequences, for fear of how far he’d go once he’d give in. 

It was only for Ada spending most of the nights with Freddie nowadays that you often slept in Tommy’s bed.

And now that you lived with him, he wanted to do it right. To do it properly. He kissed you and made you feel  _ many _ things, but he had never made love to you like that.

‘Only when I can marry you’, he always said, because he was aware that wasn’t going to happen as long as your stepmother lived. He knew that you were scared of her, and feared that her judgement would destroy you one day. Because somehow, whenever you had to make a decision, her voice and her opinions always seemed to find a way into your head. 

So he loved you in every other way he could, and you never even once complained.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Tommy tries to comfort you but you're inconsolable.

It was a busy day at the betting shop, but Tommy kept you out of it. That’s why he found himself staring at you from the chalkboard. 

You were lying on the couch, the doors in the middle of the house wide open. A book was what kept your mind occupied, and you hadn’t noticed how your dress had hiked up and showed most parts of your legs. It was summer, and he told himself that was the reason. It was hot, and you liked to wear sheer dresses. 

Polly chuckled as she saw him looking at you, dropping the mail in his hands. ‘I thought fixing this race was what kept you up all night, but now I know better.’

Tommy scoffed.

Arthur sat down next to you with a grunt. ‘What’s this with you and reading all the time, eh?’

‘It’s food for your mind, Arthur’, you replied with a smile.

He grabbed the book from you hands, read the title - Anna Karenina - and handed it back. 

‘Yeah, I’ll bet that’ll keep me from starving.’ He laughed that loud laugh of his, that you secretly loved.

‘Here’s something else to read, dear’, Polly told you as she handed you a letter from behind the couch. You took it and looked at it. You never got any letters.

‘So, what’s it say?’, Arthur asked impatiently when you had finished reading it. Far back, across the room, Tommy was still looking at you, puzzled.

For some reason, everyone was silent. 

Slowly, you sat up on the couch, your eyes fixed on the letter, getting blurry. You used one trembling hand to push your hair behind your ears as you tried to explain what was in the letter.

‘I, uhm…’, you said with a unsteady voice, ‘my mother, uhm, stepmother, died.’

You heard someone sigh. 

You supposed they were happy that the woman who kicked you out of your own home had passed, but she had been your mother for over 15 years, and there was a time where you had loved her.

‘Did your sister write this?’, Tommy asked in a low voice, who was now standing beside you, with a hand on your shoulder. You hadn’t even noticed.

You shook your head angrily. ‘No, my old neighbour did. I don’t understand… I’ve got a fucking sister and she won’t even tell me my mother died.’

Then you started crying. You had lost your family and it was a feeling everyone else in the room was glad for not knowing.

‘So when’s the funeral?’, John asked quietly.

‘Tomorrow’, you answered through your tears.

Tommy gently ran his hand through your hair and hooked his knuckle under your chin to make you look at him. ‘We’ll go with you’, he said with determined eyes, a hint of softness in it, only for you.

‘All of us.’ His eyes scanned the room, and his brothers and aunt nodded.

‘Ada’ll come too. Wherever she is’, Arthur added, mumbling the last part.

You had never felt more grateful and inconsolable at the same time in your life.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Tommy tries to comfort you but you're inconsolable.

Everyone that came to say goodbye to your mother had gathered in front of the church. The ceremony was earlier that day, but you weren’t much of a religious person and God never spoke to you in any way, so you only went to pay your respects.

It was a gloomy day. Rain was lightly pouring from the sky, and clouds were all you could see.

Ada smiled at you, and Tommy squeezed your hand. ‘You can do this’, he told you.

You wished it was true.

You all walked inside.

The church was almost completely filled with your mother’s high society friends, dark and sobbing. Slowly, you made your way to the altar, with your mother’s coffin in front of it. Hundreds of flowers surrounded it, and the sun, which had finally managed to break through the endless amount of clouds, shone a light on it from the glass windows.

Your family was right behind you, and that comforted you a great deal when you saw your past family members turning around at you and whispering. They always said that only God could judge, you remembered, but it now appeared as if they thought themselves to be equals to Him.

‘God knows what she’s up to now. I’ve heard about those Peaky Blinders, and they’re just a bunch of immoral gangsters. She’s tied her own noose by living with them. And God doesn’t forget’, you heard a woman whisper to the person next to her.

‘You know’, Ada turned around and spoke rather loudly, ‘kindness doesn’t cost you a single thing. A daughter has lost her mother today. I think God will want you to show some humanity to her, as He’s all about forgiving and all that.’

You recognized the woman as your aunt. She immediately stopped talking and looked away, guarding her dignity.

It would only take you a few steps to get to your mother, but you hesitated. 

Your stepsister made the decision for you. ‘Leave. You’re not welcome here, and I know for sure that she wouldn’t have wanted you to come’, she hissed from behind.

You turned around and looked at her. 

Not much had changed, except for her growing belly, and her husband sitting behind her. 

‘I only want to say a few words, then I’ll leave’, you spoke softly.

You held your head high all the while, but you could feel the tears burning in your eyes.

Then her husband grabbed her wrist and pulled her away from you. ‘Let her’, he said, ‘it’s not worth it.’ 

You would’ve thanked him, if it wasn’t for the bitter look on his face.

Glancing behind you, you saw that Tommy and the rest had already taken a seat on the benches. It was now only you and your sorrows and your guilt.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Tommy tries to comfort you but you're inconsolable.

Your aunt called out your name as you were about to leave. You turned around, Tommy’s hand on the small of your back, and you looked at her, cautious of her intentions.

She smiled a small smile at you. ‘There’s a small gathering at her house now. Perhaps you’ll want to come, and have something to eat.’

You nodded at her, and she left.

‘You did well today’, Polly told you with a smile. She ran her thumb across your cheek, the way a mother would do.

‘They don’t deserve it, though’, John said with a scoff.

‘Yeah’, Arthur agreed with a laugh, ‘we can cut the bastards right now. You just say the word, eh?’

Thomas shook his head with a chuckle. ‘I think she’s good, Arthur.’


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Tommy tries to comfort you but you're inconsolable.

You knew right away that your split with your former family would never fully heal, but there was unmistakably a sense of good will on both sides.

They had all made some small talk with you, and left you with a better feeling. Only your sister and her husband had avoided you all afternoon.

It was when you were standing in the library, looking between the hundreds of books, that she came up to you. She leaned her bodyweight against the doorframe and glared at you when you ran your fingers across the book covers. 

Finally you found the one you were looking for.

‘I’m taking this one with me’, you said with as much courage as you could muster. It was Anna Karenina, which your stepmother read to you so many times when you were a young girl. The book never failed to remind you of better times, when she loved you as a real mother and your friendship with Ada was enough for you.

‘No, you’re not’, your brother in law said as he appeared behind his wife. He protectively placed his hand on her back. ‘We haven’t yet decided what we’re keeping and what we’re throwing away.’

The thought of them discarding the book as if it had no meaning at all made you angry. 

‘You do with all the rest whatever you want, I just want this book.’

‘Put it back’, your sister sternly said. She wrapped her fingers around the doorframe. It had stopped raining for a while now, and the setting sun that shone through the window reflected brightly on your mother’s ring. ‘You can’t go and leave for a year, and have me take care of  _ our _ mother when she’s sick, and then expect to come back and take whatever you want.’

‘As I recall, you didn’t do a single fucking thing to stop her from leaving me behind. And now you’re telling me I can’t take one goddamn book, but she hasn’t been even buried for a day and you’re already wearing her fucking jewelry?’ Your voice raised with every word.

She looked at the ground, almost ashamed, but you did not fail to notice the threatening frame of her husband behind her.

He didn’t scare you though, so you told her one last time you were going to take the book with you, and tried to make your way past them.

‘No, you’re fucking not, you Blinder whore’, your brother in law spat as he took a step forward and grabbed you by your throat. You flinched away from him, and that’s why he didn’t slam the back of your head, but the right side of your face against the doorframe.

It hurt incredibly much, and you dropped the book.

Your sister called out her husbands name and pulled him back, his strong grasp from before leaving you gasping for air.

‘She’s not worth it. Come on.’


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Tommy tries to comfort you but you're inconsolable.

It was late at night when you returned. The whole house was dark but for a few candles on the kitchen table. Around them were empty glasses and a bottle of whiskey, cigarettes and matches. At the table were Polly and Thomas.

Polly looked up alarmed when you walked in, your head hanging low, sobbing softly. ‘God, what happened? What did they-’

‘Let me, Polly’, Tommy interrupted her. He walked over to you but you pushed him away.

‘Leave me alone, Tommy.’

He grabbed your wrist and pulled him close to you. ‘Just calm down, love. It’s alright.’

His voice was stern in a way, like a parent to a child, but you wouldn’t budge. 

‘Can you just for once… for once let me be?’, you said as you looked up to him, but never looked at him, and in the faint candlelight, he could make out the bruise on the side of your face.

You were of the impression that not a single thing on earth could shock Thomas Shelby, but the expression in his eyes disproved that. That shock quickly went to anger as he opened his mouth.

You were faster, though: ‘No, I don’t want to hear it. I don’t want to hear any of it.’


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Tommy tries to comfort you but you're inconsolable.

Tommy knew two things when he found you in his bedroom. 

The first was that Ada was gone again, and the second was that you were willing to forgive him.

You sat at the edge of his bed, in your nightdress, with your hair loose, staring somberly out of the window into the dark streets of Birmingham. With trembling hands, you brought a cigarette to your mouth, and inhaled it deeply. When you exhaled, Tommy had already undressed and climbed under the covers.

‘Come here, eh?’, he asked, but you knew it wasn’t a question. ‘Let’s go to bed.’

You stood up. To him, it felt like some sort of magic you were working on him, how the moon made your nightdress almost transparent, how you wiped away your tears with the back of your hand, how he longed to have you lay next to him.

You put out the cigarette.

He reached for you and you grabbed his hand, enchanted and kept prisoner by his eyes, the exact way he felt about yours. 

You always slept between him and the wall, so you brought one leg over him but he stopped you midway, so that you were hovering above him. 

His breath was steady, but yours was shaking as bad as your heart was beating. With a firm but loving grip on your hips, he brought you down on him, so you were straddling his lap. 

Your hands were placed lightly on his abdomen, the straps of your nightdress were falling off. He searched in your eyes and found you. That was a way you two had; something happened and he only had to look into your eyes to understand. 

But you were irresistible, and the booze in his system and your kisses had him wondering how he could ever live without this.

It was that night, when he was on top of you and when you were whimpering his name, your hands on his shoulders, his lips on your collarbone, that he told you how much he loved you. 

‘I’ll do anything for you. I’ll give you everything you could ever want.’

He knew he brought it down on himself that moment, but how could he regret it when he was between your soft thighs, and living in such a sweet ecstasy?

‘I want a family, Tom,’ you whispered against his lips.

It was also then, between the thrusts and the moans, that you finally, both, felt utterly and entirely complete.


End file.
